Fired, Brushed, Tumbled, Tarnished & Polished

Here are 45 of the charms I finished today in all of their imperfect handmade glory. "Finished" as in, fired, brushed, tumbled, tarnished and polished. Now comes the real fun part - matching them up with beads and wire wrapping each one to attach to my moo cards for ArtFest trades.

First thing I did after making coffee this morning was set up my Ventilated Patination Station. That's what I was calling it anyway. It's actually just small dishes set out on the back porch with Liver of Sulphur and water. I had it set up from right to left: hot water to heat the silver, then the LOS in warm water to patina the silver and finally, a cool bath of water to stop the chemical process. I used a piece of wire and dipped each charm in all three dishes. Some I left lighter than others. The darker ones were dipped a few different times.

I was so excited and jumped right in to the patination process that I almost forgot to take photos of the shiny charms before they changed colors. Here are a few of the shiny ones with some I had just tarnished. They are bright and shiny because I put them in the rotary tumbler with mixed steel shot last night for about 40 minutes.

More tarnished ones. I like how some of them got that iridescent mixed color. I don't know what it's called but it sort of looks like the top of oil in a parking lot after it rains. You know the look I am talking about? Is there a word for that other than iridescent?

Here's a handful of them after I had polished the high points with a very very very fine steel wool. I would have used my Sunshine Polishing Cloths if I could have found them. Yes, my studio is still a mess! Reminds me of a cross stitched pillow that my mom has: "A Clean House is the Sign of a Misspent Life."

I realized that I didn't have anything in these photos to show size relationship so here's a shot my husband took of me laying them out on a stool outside.

(Pssst...BIG, one of your photos made it onto my blog! Thanks for helping me. You're the best husband but I won't let it get around to your friends. ;-) )